


Boardwalk Fair

by nigellecter



Series: Burning Desire (Nigel x Gabi) [1]
Category: Charlie Countryman (2013)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Gabi has none of it, Implied Sexual Content, Nigel is a child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:56:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7418875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigellecter/pseuds/nigellecter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nigel and Gabi ventures to French Riviera as they briefly reunite to have a well-deserved welcoming respite. </p><p>To be updated...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sun seems to be as unrelenting as Nigel’s grouchiness as it streams down and sparkles a cornucopia of dazzling creations upon the most recent purchase from the Lecter-Ibanescu household. Gabi’s new Beetle, as quirky and flamboyant a color as their personalities. Nigel had recently plucked two bullets out from his left shoulder and bicep and was in an unfathomably gloomy mood, contrasted with the blinding array of sunray, waltzing across their alight flat. Where the clear-cut sun leaves a temporary streak of orange glow, Nigel’s puffing and ranting leaves a permanent layer of drowning mist that would consume every fucking inch of the pore of the walls, the ugly wallpapers, unventilated living room like a dank cellar. It dripped with Nigel’s audible drench of animosity and unchecked fury. Gabi would have none of it, at least until Nigel fully recovers.

 

So Gabi had suggested more a productive alternative. Instead of lingering and asphyxiating in the fuming ectoplasm of his bottled up anger and her profound boredom, they decided to take a short excursion to the south of France, to French Riviera near Cannes. Nigel had been shot down in an ugly, unsanctioned trade gone wrong after a bone of contention and Gabi had been performing in various opera houses around France and time checked out for them to meet in the midpoint - they would make it to Marseille just after hanging around for couple of days in the rented cabin near the coast. After plucking those two bullets from his torn muscles and bitter spike of excruciating pain, Nigel’s arm had been strung up in a tourniquet until his stitches would heal. Then, a sling held everything in its place. Three fucking months, he’d have to be confined with restrictive movement and no strenuous exercises and activities until it came off. 

 

“We could’ve just fucking lounged around like we used to in that Bicaz Gorge cabin,” with his uninjured arm crossed over the arm sling, Nigel scowls and twitches his nose as an unforgiving ray instantly blinds him. With the shades pulled down from his lightened array of ash and blond, he scratches over the hard cast under his dachshund print button-down. The tank top he wears underneath dampens with heavy film of perspiration. “I’ll be fucked, ugh… It itches.” 

 

Nigel had gone through much worse and more excruciating pain than this, yet, without any painkillers coursing through his bloodstream, every sensation seems to be an aggravant to his anger. Gabi has seen Nigel at his worst - he seemed to man up with grave injuries, yet little commonplace things like cold and a fucking papercut would have him in a puddle of profuse curses and dripping bitchness, like a snail leaving its sticky mess behind. The stitches had came off, although the battle scar left a perceptible marring over where the defined and hardened muscles set beneath the epidermal.  

 

Gabi had also been tired from lengthened tour of France and the extensive training she had gone through to master her craft. However extraordinary her talents and penchant for enthralling the audience in her powerful, yet mind-boggling feat of excellence as a head cellist, she also needed a well-deserved welcoming respite from all of this. “Come on, it’ll be all good, I’ll make sure you don’t go through any more pain than you are right now.” Keeping her eyes on the road and giving her husband an askewed glance, the thin fabric of her sundress rides up and reveals a somewhat provocative cutout one-piece swimsuit, accentuating her cello hole tattoo she had gotten not too long after she began to date Nigel. 

 

“Cover that fucking tat up, where’s the cardigan you brought in the carryon?” If his left hand hadn’t been unwantedly perched atop his left pectorals, then Nigel would’ve already ran his fingers against the arched dimple of her back. Still, her cardigan would’ve have been at a cropped length, which would ever cover up the expanse of her exposed back. 

 

“Should I prohibit you from stripping off your shirts so no one can ever look at my whole package?” Having arrived at the beachfront with the sun overhanging from their head, the car curves around the curb and halts with a smooth turn. The salty breeze carries a familiarity of hoppy, almost caramel-like scent hits home. Nigel merely flashes a questionable, untranslatable look towards Gabi. It could be an amusement, a contentment that his possessive gesture had been reciprocated, but he also knows he doesn’t have a reason to let him drown in a rush of jealousness - the glimmer of the band on his ring finger with an infinity mark and their initials intertwined with the simplistic design proves the incessant love. Their close proximity of body and soul. Even the longest absence isn’t going to be perilous to their love, a strong rapport through complacence.  

 

“I’ll get us that fucking churros and beer float, I fucking love those,” immediately rushing towards the vendors aligning the boardwalk, Nigel grabs the shoulderbag packed with accoutrements and dashes off towards a great slither of line. The smell of deep-fried delectable creation and the heat-quenching frosty goodness an instant gratification. 

 

“See? I told you..” Gabi casually watches as her words trail, the menacing criminal of a husband acting more like a tantrum-throwing boy who always needs to be spurred on with motivating stimuli. 

 

“Don’t forget to get cinnamon sugar on those churros!” She yells behind his sprinting figure as she shuts the trunk off. After applying more of the jet-black eyeliner and smudging over her eyelids, she follows behind, taking note of her surroundings as she does. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Passing through throngs of people clumped around and forming lines in every kiosk, the cornucopia of different scents from street food turns Nigel’s appetite up a notch. Even when he didn’t have a huge sweet tooth, the only guilty pleasures he could savor, such as éclairs stuffed with different colors of eye-catching cream and icing,  the handmade pomme frites, crepes full of different combinations, both savory and sweet and  choux à la crème garnished with powdered sugar , topped with seasonal fruits simmered in simple syrup to satisfy anyone with a particularly sweet tooth. 

 

Zipping through the lines with a distinctive cock of his head, Nigel exchanges good-natured railleries with the young girl behind the kiosk as he orders for both himself and Gabi. Everything effervescents with life as the thriving ambiance of the fairground and the salty breeze offering a bit of vigor within his overly lassitude corporeality, his energy instills further along with the contrasting views of the boardwalk. Quite a hubbub near the beach where kids are gathered around and practicing dance and music recital. The families lounging by the benches and sipping cold drinks, couples like them entrenched within the intermingling breaths and amalgamating scents of butter, caramel, luscious chocolate, all the amorous and erogenous stimuli. With a mischievous glint behind the center of his unfathomable hazel, his neck sticks out to the side and observes the opposite side of the vendor.  

 

To both Gabi’s amusement and peculiar frustration which had been already expected, she catches Nigel flashing a provocative smirk at a small group of girls in bikinis and wide-brimmed sun hats, giggling and reciprocating attractive and attentive smiles at Nigel’s direction. Gabi immediately pinches Nigel’s bum and bumps into his uninjured shoulder as her husband pivots around with two long churros sticking out from the folds of his arm, nudged into the cast and one beer float, dangerously balanced on top of Nigel’s hardened, sun-kissed arm. Holding all the purchases like the most precious prize, Nigel grins contentedly as Gabi shoots him an askewed gaze. 

 

“Having marvelous time flirting with those girls? I should break that ring finger and see how you fare.” With no animosity dripping in her voice, the corner of Gabi’s lips quirk up as she takes the disposable plastic cup full of delectable foamy layer, the defining summer scent of sweet hoppy scent along with almost saccharine scent of heat radiating from the taller figure. “I was just playing around,  _ darling _ , although they do quite love that particular word in French.  _ Mon chéri. _ ” With a devilish glint behind unblinking eyes, Nigel’s steady look manifests into the sun’s ray - divulging and abundantly lavishing. Richer than the booth where a buttery dab of paint curves around the voluptuousness of the woman’s lips. Both can get utterly, hopelessly lost in them as each anchoring breath brings inspiration.   

 

Raising an eyebrow, Gabi takes a long gulp, the white foam getting around her lips and smearing an O shape. In return, Nigel bumps his hips against Gabi’s and takes a ravenous bite of the piping hot churros, the steam still coming through the hole in the middle and the shimmering oil dripping over the ridge of the concoction. Instantly, the roof of his mouth burns as scalding sensation blazes all over his face. Manifesting himself into a fire-breathing dragon, Nigel almost spats the unchewed chunk of sweet doughy pastry out before fanning himself frantically with his hand, almost dropping the float and fumbling with the container. 

 

Gabi’s hand immediately sticks in front of Nigel’s mouth, as if he had been her son, not her grown-up ass husband. Taking her time and adjusting the straw inside the dome-shaped lid, she watches him taking a hurried sip to quench the incineration. She was already used to dealing with Nigel’s dualism. The one that existed beyond the realm of their household, almost no chill, no fucks taken criminal hitman whose threshold for pain extended beyond the normal capability. As if he functioned upon the pain, which had been the body’s way of speaking and linking them together in an unbreakable bond - their memories would never fade, impermeable as their amalgamated lives would explode in confetti of colors. No blackness would rush to destroy the light. A magical enchantment as everything seemed to whirl and their conjoinment only transformed to be the force to be reckoned with. 

 

Then, there’s this uncontrollable inner child Nigel simply didn’t pluck himself out of, as if some part of subconsciousness refused to mature up into a fully-grown adult.   

 

“You had that one coming, as supposed punishment,” another poke along the dip of Nigel’s shirt, just above his hipbone. Giving her a face and smearing cinnamon sugar all over his lips and even on his cheeks, Nigel devours through the whole cruller-shaped sweets, licking over the glistening upper lip with the tip of his tongue. Now concentrating on his float, Nigel’s thumb graze over Gabi’s lips as his slinged arm wiggles along with his easy stride, matching Gabi’s steps as she had been wearing a gladiator flat sandals. His Sperry, barefoot with flamboyant, color blocked in eclectic shades of neon red colored boardshorts ride along to reveal flexing muscles of his thighs. 

 

“Well, I’ll be damned, this is out of this fucking world,” mumbling out an excuse and smacking his lips together, with the blazing sun’s ray to his back, Nigel leans towards Gabi as the silhouette of himself seems to take a leap to envelop Gabi’s smaller figure. His crossed left arm pressing into Gabi’s upper breasts, barely covered with the revealing scooped neck of the swimsuit. His oily lips are about to brush over and lock with Gabi’s in what it seems to be a light brush of lips and his mind is already distracted with the looming sign past the gathered clumps of people. Like the Red Sea parting forth to make the path, Nigel almost drops his still frigid cold cup and drags Gabi’s wrist. 

 

The sign which says ‘Bumper Cars’ instantaneously enthralls Nigel’s attention and like a kid in the candy store and his mind already controlled by the tunnel vision. The cold slush gives him a brain freeze as he guzzles it down in a blink of an eye. The melted granules of ground up ice seeps into the fibers of the light blue fabric littered with wiener dogs, the colors had a bit faded with years of wear. 

  
“That’s the fucking ride I had been looking for, wanna bet?” 


	3. Chapter 3

Gabi doesn’t need to go through deep contemplation to come up with a wager she’s sure to beat Nigel any time of the day. It was her turn to feel cheeky and reciprocate her husband’s character-defining smirk of her own. “Whoever that makes as many passes around the track without getting hit wins, how about that?” Pressing her front against Nigel’s side, her palm strokes over the hard cast that seem to expel Nigel’s body heat as she whispers against his ear. Standing on the tiptoe, Gabi presses a lingering kiss upon Nigel’s warm expanse of rose-tinged cheek and a hand urges towards the dancing cornucopia of light bulbs dancing across the outskirts of the perimeter, along with the flamboyant array of rows of light, sparkling like a galaxy underneath the realistically rendered shapes of sports convertible.

 

“If I win, you get to do what I want for the rest of the day.” Wholly confident that she would win it for sure, Gabi sucks on the straw, emptying the container and gives the empty cup a gentle toss by fling of her elbow. “I’ve already made up my mind, what about you, big boy?” Hooking her arm and taking a piece of churros from the crook of Nigel’s elbow, Gabi provokes Nigel further. “I get to fuck you inside the changing room. That men’s room is empty, who the fuck ever changes in there? Every fucking one’s already in shorts or bloody speedos.” He’s already imagining them washing off the salty scents and sticky mess of the sweat and stubbornly lingering heat as they quench of their voracious thirst for each other. The cool expanse of her skin soothing against the water. Although his movement will be greatly restricted and the doctor had said ‘no strenuous activities,’ while the stitches heal, he absolutely didn’t give a fuck.

 

“Just wait and see, I’m gonna be faster than Michael Schumacher and overtake and slither around all those fucking cars.” Nigel declares as he leans against Gabi’s brushing lips and shifting his location just to use his free arm to wind around her waist. His half-shut gaze dances around the expanse of the gleaming surface, aggravated by the spectacular sparks and blaring music from the speakers by the controlling station, where the operator is busy tweaking the buttons and making remarks in both French and English. Growing impatient and itching for a flaring rush of adrenaline, Nigel chomps down the last bit of the churros and leans over the railing as they stand on the single-file waiting line.

 

Gabi lets Nigel act like a boy waiting in a line to get the most coveted line of exclusive toy or a video game in front of the electronics store as the excitement spills faster than the endless whirl of lights and vehicles clashing against each other in a clump. Once Nigel begins to bump into other cars, Gabi surely knows her competitive and easily irritated husband will get exacerbated further until he knocks into every fucking car on the ground until his unchecked fury subsides down. Through the sangfroid indifference, the temperamental gale brewed within him like magic and fireworks.

 

Egged on by the display of inadequate rampancy, Nigel’s quick to place a dib on the black car with a blazing red flame accentuating the streamlined body. Gabi casually trails behind Nigel, until she pivots away to perch herself on the yellow one with light purple accent on the back of the car.

 

Nigel’s arm already quivers with unrelenting excitement, as the stub protruding from his side even breaths with a separate life as the slinged arm tremors with anticipation. Fingers tightly curled around the steering wheel, he immediately stomps onto the pedal as soon as he is given the sign to go. The whirring contraption sparks as he whiffs in the familiar scent of the motor oil and the reckless dare devil inside him immediately springs forward. It didn’t matter how jarring the ricocheting pain would be inflicted upon his limb. All he cares for is facing with the collisions and watching how the others fare with his cruel intentions.

 

Aside from a few dads riding with their kids, he might be the oldest one there as the protective tubing continues to glide and crash into almost every car there is on the scope of the ride. Gabi is as cool as a cucumber, minus a few slithering turns as she zips through the clustered mess of cars and amidst the galumphing vehicles, there is Nigel, his expression growing more annoyed as there’s one plump kid with a bear-shaped tummy who drives him up the wall. His slashed lips pulling taut as the wheel frantically swirls and abruptly turns, the particularly harsh collision sends his body to slam into the side of the car and he bites his lower lip, almost hard enough to bruise and pull blood close to the skin. His preposterously high cheekbones tinged with red, he grows red by the second time around. That fucking kid continues to be bothersome in preventing him from achieving his task. The sole amusement and curiosity of drawing the utter horror upon the others’ face narrowing slim to none. His poor handling of the car due to his disadvantageous injury along with his volatile emotion doesn’t help him to win that particular bet.

 

After the second round, Gabi had already made her full-circuit and knows Nigel would ever dare to make a full lap. He had been at a butting war with a damn kid who just about matched Nigel’s devilish intentions as the kid’s sole intention had been bothering the fuck out of him and getting in every direction where Nigel would try to go. “I need to pee, so go ahead and ride more if you want.” It wasn’t nothing urgent, but she wanted to see where this particularly amusing situation would lead, but nevertheless, after a long line to get into the one of the stalls and to reapply the eyeliner, she makes it back just in time to face with a commotion. Nigel is now an unpredictable wrecking ball of furiousness embodied behind the sweating hot mess of his body, fighting with the aforementioned kid just outside the exit gate.

 

Through the pins and needles now turning into a full-on affliction, Nigel simply refuses to give up and surrender as he yells to the boy in broken French. The jolting staggering sensation from too many collisions leaves an unsettling uneasiness as the spoiled ten-year-old boy equally butts head with more fluent English. With his fingers curled around the boy’s collar and shaking with anger, Nigel growls like a leopard with the prey right in front for him to devour. Except, the boy’s grandma is there and watching Nigel’s menacing demeanor, simply watches in horror with her walking stick poised up, prepared for the worst as the situation turns disastrous.

 

“ _ Vous insolent petit garçon putain.. _ ” Fuming with explosive anger, Nigel pulls the collar of his shirt up as the cords on his neck tauts along the line of his neck. The color almost draining from his face as if the rosy tint had been fully incinerated to turn white. “ _ Pourquoi… interrompez où je vais _ ?”

 

“He’s just a kid and you’re like what, thirty-five? I’m gonna let him ride some more, don’t come back and cause more of a havoc.” The operator lets the pudgy kid in, while the skipping boy sticks a tongue towards Nigel’s direction. With his curled fist shaking and lashing front as Gabi’s arm stops him, Nigel thinks of slicing that fucking boy’s tongue with a pincer.

 

Having none of it, Gabi rolls her eyes enough to hear it inside her brain and heaves a long sigh, having none of this and so done with it. “I won, fair and square and now I want you to chill the fuck out and get me one of those big stuffed wiener dogs. I want to carry it around when I go to Germany next month for another tour.”


	4. Chapter 4

If Nigel had pointed a fucking revolver at that insolent and spoiled ten-year-old boy, it would’ve ricocheted off the bones of the chubby kid and tore through the little impudent skull of his. Still shooting venomous daggers behind the boy as he snickers towards Nigel, his fist shakes rather dramatically as the brimming heat refuses to escape through the pores. The bent arm wiggles under the adhered sling, plastered onto his shirt as he furiously growls like a big cat whose scrumptious meal had been stolen by bunch of hyenas. His palm wet with fresh perspiration, his forehead deeply creases as he huffs, turning away from the abomination of the boy who seemed to be everything he wasn’t when he had been the kiddo’s age. The inevitable trauma of his past where his childhood had been plucked right out of the projected course of his life, along with the ragamuffin days of his coarse and rough times on the street which immediately followed, combined with the underlying jealousy had him wrapped around his consciousness, which had gnawed him and made him edgier than usual. He could literally feel the steam rise from above his head as his incinerating whiskey continues to drip with both virulent venom and challenged look as he looks over at the tent full of people. Silently thanking Gabi’s suggestion of diverting his anger to more of a productive task, he focuses his attention on Gabi and then cocks his head towards the tent.

 

He could literally feel the crimson splatter, becoming more draining as it ribbons out from his limb like the confetti that had been blown off as the balloons popped from the next stall, where the girls are making balloons full of glitter and strips of colored paper. Nigel lets his gaze linger there for a while, wanting the maelstrom pass over his heart with a minimal damage. Scrutinizing the red-dominant setup with the intricate sign saying ‘Shooting Gallery,’ both in French and English and watching the others struggle to get the medium-sized targets, he silently thinks it would be as fucking easy as a pie. For a cartilage, a participant could fire up five shots. If they successively hit certain amount of color-coded disks ranging from very easy to difficult, then one would be able to choose prizes from the displayed examples. The highest one being what Gabi had pointed out.

 

For some unfathomable reason, letting his anger bubble up inside him was something Nigel could really immerse in. He was a creature of emotion and when it washed over him, he literally asphyxiated and drowned upon it. As he diverted the energy in particularly stimulating and challenging task. Gabi’s proposition is something that he could be easily and almost effortlessly persuaded. He wouldn’t start anything at all, knowing that once he does, he’d see the end of it, no matter what the consequences. The insolent boy had long gone for another ride and Nigel could practically hear the boy’s high-pitched laugh reverberating through the moist and stuffy air as he percolates the every facet and nuance that boy seemed to exude. Ignoring for good as he pivots around, clearing his mind to let the moving rotation completely enrapture into his mind like an unpooling yarn, he watches an erratic group of people gathered in a clump, shooting the plastic pellets from the long-barreled, glock-shaped gun.

 

“ _ Combien pour dix _ ?” Nigel points with his chin at the array of targets, ranging from infinitesimal to large. Gabi rummages through her small purse and retrieves a ten-euro bill, making a deposit without hearing the vendor’s answer. The man replies it would cost them a euro per a cartilage, so that would earn him fifty pellets in total. She already knows Nigel will get hooked on and obstinately wouldn’t want to give up, especially after the unsatisfactory quibble with the kid. Nigel’s already chomping at the bit to give it a try as he grows more impatient. Gabi also perceives that Nigel’s vigor doesn’t particularly direct at wanting to get her the wiener dog stuffed plush, yet, she can’t help the unexpected touch of warmth rushing through her.

 

Taking a breather from his muddled-up sanity which had taken more than a ding, Nigel’s chatoyant whiskey orbs close in to the targets with ebullience as he loads the small spheres into the chamber. The tangled line connecting the counter ledge to the plastic firearm itself wraps around his elbow as he looks at the moving targets, popping up rhythmically at erratic intervals as to throw off the shooter’s precision and concentration. The overhead sun spilling forth their back as Nigel’s fingers struggle to load the bullets, as the dazzling light reflects upon the vivid color of the conveyor belt. “Give it all you got, big boy,” Gabi squeezes her husband’s tense shoulders as the owner of the vendor helps to set everything up. “Hit five small targets, then that big wiener dog is yours.”

 

Some time pass and Nigel’s injured arm repeatedly tightens and strains as he is forced to have all of the focus onto the uninjured arm muscle. In his resounding annoyance, he hadn’t given his attention at all to the big targets and even when he had missed hitting the medium one entirely, some participants would fortuitously hit the large one as it ricocheted off the wooden panel, winning at least a small snack to feed upon themselves as they wasted away their time. He begins to feel himself get more and more worked up as he continues to hit the medium-sized targets as irritation, which Gabi had briefly appeased, returns with its full force. Her side is pressed against his own, her fingers precisely against the jutted, pointed end of his bent elbow, just like his own had been when he had taught her how to shoot. Her presence and mirroring gesture of reciprocation seem like a good thing and almost serendipitous. Calculating the velocity and the weird curve it forms because of the lack of propelling gunpowder, his tenacious cling and the stuffed doll’s eyes, seemingly innocent yet seems to mock him in his incapability, sketches the back of his skull like an unsolved conundrum.

 

Even though this particularly soothing gesture locks his usually impeccable marksmanship in check, the threaded anger, weaved upon layer and layer still continues to be stuck up against his solar plexus. Coalescing blood and flesh, still stuck against every nook and cranny of his rib cage as his chest expands, huffing an audible breath like a charging bull. He had fired more than half, with only three small targets under his belt. Gabi had already claimed the petty price of hitting ten easy ones, a bottled sparkling water which she pops open. By then, his hairline is already drenched with ring of sweat, which trickles down the prominent curve of his cheekbone and soaks through the sling as it falls. Firing his thirtieth shot as he feels a light recoil, his trembling limb retracts before his forehead, wiping a filmy layer.

 

Gabi’s breath comes in little gasps, and she could feel the drenched heat seeping out from her side as Nigel continues to fire the shots after taking a short breather. She could feel the minute tribulations and muscles protesting in dull ache, gradually turning into a nuisance as Nigel’s face creases more and more. Cerulean sky, with fluffy clumps of clouds waddle through the sky as the washing kiss of the wave becomes a mellowed white noise in the distance. Nigel’s eyes glittered, like the ripples glistening the serene waves of the sea as if they had been filled with water. There’s a whirling tornado unpooling rapidly as he finally hits the fifth smaller target with a bull’s eye.

 

Waving his arm so vigorously each succession of fired shots become a blur of movement as fragments from the pellets and flecks of paint chip away. Like an audience’s ovation of applause and claps, his heart frantically beats as he grinds his teeth. His unperturbed facade silently gazes up in eagerness, yet, the repeated motion finally hones in itself, as with the last few counts, he manages to strike two smack dab in the middle. Gabi knows if she had tried, with the aim of Annie Oakley and Nigel’s persistent teaching, she might already have surpassed her mentor’s skills. Especially with Nigel’s balance jeopardized with his bent arm, she admirably and affectionately lands a glance upon her husband as his fingers close around the grip, putting it down with a decisive thump.

 

Instinctively, Gabi’s pupils widen as she moves to the opposite side of Nigel, attempting to block his view as a familiar profile locks upon her periphery vision. The same kid, who had long before gotten out of the bumper car is now completely immersed in the shooting game as he had been eyeing the same prize Gabi wanted to get all this time. If Nigel knew, she knows things will take a turn for a much worse.    


End file.
